France and its territories2015 Edition

This book of “Insee References” collection, France and its territories, offers a selection
of key figures about regions, on their actual delimitations and on the next delimitations
that will become effective on 1st January 2016.

The concentration of professions by employment sector is tending to increase

Vivien Roussez, Jonathan Bougard, Benoît Roumier

Different professions are present in very different ways depending on the territory.
Their mapping by employment area highlights quite a clear contrast between highly
urban areas with a high concentration of managers and intellectual professions and
other areas which are more agricultural, more industrial, or with more manual labourers.
These specific local features are linked in part to the uneven distribution of industries
and enterprises with employees in the region. These specific features have tended
to increase over time, although working class areas become less and less a feature.
Increasing specialisation and the geography of the area also reinforce the interdependence
of local labour markets. Indeed the jobs on offer in a territory are not necessarily
held by members of the working population living in the same region. Therefore, there
may locally be a significant mismatch between labour supply and demand, mainly in
dense urban areas. However, this mismatch does not translate into a higher proportion
of job seekers where it is greatest.